The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

My little attitude adjustment on Chad was still working for me Monday morning. I actually got a smile and a wave from His Nibs as he passed my desk rather than the customary stone face. It was almost enough to make me a little sorry for what was going to happen to him. Almost.

“Got a second, Chad?”

He stopped and turned back to me. “Sure, Sam. What’s on your mind?”

“Just a small thing.” I stood and moved closer, as if I was going to say something I didn’t want overheard. He took the cue and cocked his head to lend me his ear, and he didn’t seem to notice that I also gently put my hand on his arm. “I’ve got a lot to dig up before the CES trip, and in order to do it I’m going to need exclusive use of Leah this week.” And then, as Chad thought about his answer, I let a bunch of URLs I’d looked up over the weekend run through my mind along with the desire that Chad should check them out for possible story material.

It may have been a little too much input, because it took Chad a minute to clear the blank look. “Sorry, Sam, I sort of zonked for a second there. Leah, you say? Okay. I’ll let her know that she’s yours exclusively for the week.”

“Thanks.”

I was happy to note that Chad closed the door behind him when he went into his cube.

Thanks to a couple of long phone calls it was almost lunchtime before I got to sit down with Leah. She seemed uncomfortable, shifting in her seat and not looking at me directly. So I tapped her on the knee and let my fingers linger there long enough to say, “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

The blank look came and went and her face turned two shades more red. “Look, Sam, about the other day...”

“You mean in the supply room?”

“Ssh! Yeah, that.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “I ... uhh ... went a little too far there for a joke, and I didn’t want you to think ... well, you know ...”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I just hope it doesn’t ... change anything.”

Good researchers are hard to find and harder to keep. Besides, it was bad enough that I needed to avoid my favorite deli for a while. So I laid my hand on her knee again and looked her in the eyes. “It changes nothing. We have a good working relationship and a good friendship, and you will always feel comfortable around me. You can talk to me about anything because you know I’ll understand.”

“That’s right,” she agreed as the blank face faded. “You’re so smart about this stuff. Now I feel a little stupid for worrying.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I assured her. “Now, let’s focus on the things I need you to run down this week.”

I gave Leah more than enough work to keep her busy feeding me specifications and vendor data all week. Leah was sharp; I needed that sharpness, but I wanted her too busy to notice anything unusual in my own activities.

In order for my plan to work I had to make sure I wasn’t seen as slacking on the job, so I spent a long afternoon finishing off an interview piece that would have been due the previous week, had Chad not magnanimously given me that extension. It would still get to layout on time so there’d be no problem with production. As a bonus, Chad felt obligated to discuss it, which gave me an opportunity to stand behind him with a hand on his shoulder long enough to mentally suggest a couple of “intimate dating” websites he should join and patronize as part of his top secret research into Internet porn.

Gayle proved a tougher nut to crack. When she wasn’t up at Corporate doing meetings she was generally closeted in her office with other members of the editorial staff. That alone had already been fueling the rumors of a staff shake-up. I tried to get on her calendar but either her pit bull of an assistant wasn’t giving her the message or Gayle was choosing to ignore me. By Wednesday I was getting antsy enough to seriously consider staking out the ladies’ room.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. When I punched the Down button to go meet Joe for lunch the elevator dinged almost immediately, the door opened, and there was my managing editor, all alone and obviously headed out. Our eyes met and for just a second I caught a flash of discomfort.

I chose to ignore it, and instead pointed casually at her stuffed portfolio. “Another lunchtime meeting?”

She gave me a polite smile. “Not today, for once. Just a little paperwork.” But she still didn’t want to look at me.

As the elevator dinged at the lobby level, I stuck out my hand. “Then I guess this is goodbye.”

“You’re leaving?” The relieved surprise on her face, almost but not totally hidden, told me all that I needed to know. Fortunately she took my gambit, and as her hand gripped mine her face went blank.

“You really don’t want me to leave, Gayle. Invite me to lunch with you so we can discuss it.”

“You’re right, Sam,” she agreed as we walked into the lobby. “Why don’t you come to lunch with me? There are some things we need to discuss.”

“I’d love to,” I said, and risked a light guiding hand on her elbow. “You have a lot on your mind and my insight would be valuable to you.”

“Yes ... yes, it would.”

Gayle took me to an Italian place a few blocks from the office. I deliberately sat on her left instead of across from her so that I could ‘accidentally’ touch her more easily with my right hand. This turned out to be a good idea, as her uneasiness increased sharply once we were seated.

“Look, Sam,” she began. “Asking you to join me probably wasn’t such a great idea. I need to work through some, uh, personnel decisions, and it’s just too hard to do that with the people involved right there at hand. And, well ...”

“That includes me?”

“Frankly, yes.”

I laid a casual hand on her arm. “I understand completely. But now that you know I’m leaving anyway, you can tell me what changes are coming and get my opinion on them as an unbiased observer. It will help to clarify things for you.”

Okay, sure, I’ll admit I was enjoying the idea of being the first to find out. But I was also well aware that an already-planned reorganization could make excellent cover for my own schemes. All I had to do was exert a little influence on the right people, starting with Gayle.

“Subscription and print advertising revenues are in decline,” Gayle explained. “Nobody is surprised by that, of course; it’s a trend that’s been going on for a while. But with the economy in the state it’s in, we’re being pressured by Tate to trim costs and diversify.”

I nodded. Tate was shorthand for Tate Global Media, the faceless conglomerate that had bought Tech Toys from the original founders a few years back. “So what’s the plan?”

“A pretty big staff cut, Sam. We’re looking at releasing half of the writing staff outright, including a lot of the more senior people because they have the highest salaries. Then we make up the difference in content generation by taking more freelance pieces and we generate more ad revenue by expanding our online presence: featured blogs, short reviews, company profiles—anything that will draw eyeballs and give us a place to sell ad space.”

“So in essence, you fire your full-time staff writers and rely on freelancers whom you can pay in cash and save the cost of benefits. Who’s the driving force behind this?”

“Chad, mostly,” she admitted. “But he’s got a lot of support from Tate, since they hand-picked him for the job. I still have the final say, but I get the feeling that if I resist too much I may end up on the goner list myself. I’m perceived as the last of the old guard, and that’s not usually a good thing.”

The more in depth we discussed the plan, the less I liked it. The three senior staff writers, myself included, were due to be axed; that would also enable Chad to drop one of the two full-time researchers and a part-timer. We’d be faced with the choice of either trying to catch on with a competing tech publication or, in a worst-case scenario, freelancing back to Tech Toys on a per-story basis like a bunch of newbies. The good news from my perspective was that it all hinged on Chad staying in Tate’s good graces; break that link and Chad would lose his ability to undermine Gayle. That would buy some time, and possibly a visit from some of the higher-ups at Tate. I looked forward to meeting them and shaking hands.

“What do you think, Sam?”

I’d almost forgotten that I owed Gayle some feedback. Again I put a hand on her arm. “I think what you think,” I told her carefully. “That cutting out the most senior staff is not only a bad idea from a journalistic standpoint, but might also open you up to an age discrimination complaint. You might save money by relying heavily on freelance writing, but you lose a degree of control over your editorial calendar. If Chad had more experience in tech journalism he would understand that, but he’s too focused on looking good to Tate.”

Gayle’s face flashed that blank look, but only a little; she probably agreed with a lot of what I’d said anyway. “All things I’ve already thought or expressed. Chad’s ideas get more mindshare than mine, though.”

“Chad is young, arrogant, and not nearly as clever as he thinks he is,” I said with my hand still on her arm. “Stall as long as you can and watch Chad carefully; I’m sure you will find a weakness you can use. I’ll stay a little longer to help you keep an eye on him.”

As I watched Gayle assimilate those instructions, I realized I was becoming more than normally aware of the neckline of her business blouse and the way her eyes seemed to stare into space. A tingling began to spread from my groin and my imagination speculated as to what other instructions I could give her. Before any of that could transfer to Gayle’s mind I quickly let go of her hand. I excused myself and left her to lunch by herself as she’d originally planned.

It wasn’t just Gayle, I noticed as I stepped out into the sidewalk. Every woman around me seemed prettier, sexier. I looked them over, met their gaze, undressed them with my eyes. I hadn’t been this horny since ... well, since Friday night with Audrey, when my body had taken the lead in jumping her bones while my mind rationalized it. Audrey ...

Without thinking, I found myself entering my favorite deli. Sure enough, there she was, standing in line waiting to order a sandwich. She abandoned her place and rushed to greet me with a look of near rapture on her face. “Sam!”

Her arms went around me and our mouths met for an open kiss that my body instinctively returned and then some. Her scent filled my nose and Sam Junior started thinking for me. He thought in pictures: of Audrey leading me back to her place, stripping our clothes off and having a nooner.

Audrey’s hand snuck a quick feel at my crotch and I realized I was touching her. “I’m so glad you came,” she almost moaned at me. “Let’s go to my place and satisfy our appetites.”

I knew I shouldn’t. I really did. But with Sam Junior in charge I found myself following her out to the street and into a cab. We kissed a few times in the cab and I started to feel an urgent need to reach inside her dress. She held me off and pulled out a cell phone. “Hi, Joyce,” she said, clearly talking to a voice mailbox, “it’s Audrey. I think I completely forgot to mention it before, but I have an appointment this afternoon and won’t be back in today. Sorry for the short notice.” Then she snapped the phone shut and looked at me with unbridled lust. “Your turn.”

So I called the office and told them I’d be doing background the rest of the day and to call my cell if they needed me. We hustled inside Audrey’s apartment and started groping each other immediately.

“There’s something you need to know, Sam,” she said breathlessly as she tugged at my shirt.

“What’s that?” I asked while my fingers found the zipper at the back of her dress.

The shirt came off and I felt her fingers at my belt. “You know what? It can wait.”

A few moments later we were naked and going at it on the living room floor. I pinned her down and suckled at each breast, then worked my way downward toward her red-carpeted snatch. A few minutes of focused attention to her clit and lips had Audrey moaning and grabbing at my hair, so I rose to my knees and teased her by sliding my hard cock up and down along the wet crease of her slit. I kept that up until she was practically jumping at me, then slipped inside her and held her hips as I thrust into her again and again. My stamina was better this time; I lasted a minute or so, versus the few seconds of our first encounter, before my cock took over and pumped into her. Just as before, the moment I started to come Audrey arched her back and gasped her way through an orgasm with me.

We spent a few minutes quietly panting on the floor before I was clear-headed enough to speak. “What was it?”

Audrey gave a breathless chuckle. “It’s called an orgasm, silly. And if they’re always going to be that good with you, this could be habit-forming.”

“Not that—what was the something I need to know?”

“I forgot,” she said with a wink. “I think you’ve scrambled my brain. It wasn’t important, anyway.”

I was too dazed to pursue it.